High Priest
by Lord Mendasuit
Summary: Harry Potter is a boy with nothing. No parents, no family, unless you count the Dursleys but then who would, and nothing to believe in. Of course, this can be easily fixed by a dimension hopping dogoo and a sadistic goddess. Unfortunately for the Wizarding World, she made a lasting impression on young Harry.
1. Gaining Religion

There's a reason why religions, all of them, are grounded more in faith and belief than in knowledge.

Whether your god exists or not, whether you worship an idea or a concept or an ancient, revered figure, there's always a niggling doubt at the back of your mind. You kill that doubt through blind faith and belief. Because everyone, and I do mean everyone, needs something they can believe in, even if that something is their own self.

Young Harry Potter, at some basic level born from childish innocence, wanted to be normal so that his family, if it could be called such with any degree of seriousness, would accept him. He was a freak, and therefore they didn't accept him, because they prized normalcy. Of course, Harry didn't know that they sought normalcy to the point of abnormality, but that's not the point.

As far as Harry knew, religion, and believing in God, was normal. And so he did. For all of the wrong reasons, but he did hold a belief that there was some kind of higher authority that would someday judge him for being a freak and condemn him to hell, whatever that was. And he wanted to become normal before that time.

Harry had never had an option to choose what religion he wanted to follow, for he wasn't even aware there was the possibility of choice. That he could seek what belief most closely resembled what he truly believed.

His belief in god was born out of a wish for normalcy, a wish of acceptance.

One could call it fake faith, as he knew nothing of it other than it was normal to believe in God. Truly, they would be correct. One can't truly worship something without knowing what that something is, and for all that Harry could already boast a prodigious intellect, it didn't matter how smart you were if you didn't have access to the knowledge in the first place.

To blame for Harry's faith being false would be none other than the Dursley family and their obsessive hatred of all things magical. Which in and of itself had been born from fear. Many would think, later in life, that they had just been born evil or that they were just horrible people, but their fear was deeply rooted because, unbeknownst to just about anyone, of decent enough reasons to, if not forgive, then at least feel some pity for them.

Vernon Dursley had been told that his parents had died while getting mugged. Of course, he was told this after having the truth removed from his brain through magic. They couldn't, after all, let him know that he had been forced to watch as a man who eerily resembled Vernon's current width force fed his mother his penis while another took her arse and a third her vagina. He couldn't know because the men who had done it had worn black cloaks and white masks. The men who had done it had been wielding wands.

The men who had done it had waved said wands and forced him to watch it. Forced his mother to kill her father and then turn to do the same to him. The only thing that had saved the then young Vernon had been the arrival of muggle policemen forcing the hand of the British Auror Corps into action.

While a simple Obliviate had gotten rid of the memories themselves, the trauma and the hatred of 'wizards', most specifically pureblood wizards, had remained burning at the back of Vernon's mind. That was why when Petunia rekindled his memories by giving him an explanation about how her sister was a freak his hatred reignited, at its full potency, and transferred to every single one of them.

Petunia Evans had always been the target of her sister's angry tantrums. Lily Evans had been prodigious in the use of charms, and had made it a point to utilize magic to get back at her sister for the petty sibling rivalry that had always been their relationship. And their parents had encouraged it! It wasn't enough that Petunia had been denied the world of wonderment and awesome magic, but she'd also been forced to deal with her sister showing her just how far behind she'd been left!

Lily had always been the perfect little girl. Always been the one all the boys trailed after during the summer. Once they'd gone to a beach and despite Petunia going for a daring two piece swimsuit that left little to the imagination and Lily choosing a much more conservative one piece, all the eyes had been plastered on the redhead from the very first moment she became visible.

When they went to school together, Lily was clearly more intelligent than her, and it showed when the younger girl could do Petunia's homework with ease, while she struggled to keep passing grades.

Always so perfect, always the best, always her parents' favorite, always the most beautiful… It made Petunia sick just to remember her.

And of course, the brat had to have her sister's oh so charming eyes. The eyes that could make both boys and girls just stare for hours on end. The same green of the killing curse that had taken Lily's life, and had almost taken the freaky little brat's own. Oh, how she wished she could go back and take the kid to an orphanage.

She didn't truly hate him. Not as a person.

What she hated was what he represented. His mother had been powerful, bright and beautiful, and the brat was gearing up to follow in her steps. Inquisitive, curious and always eager to gain approval, he'd been the teachers' favorite. And it had shown on his grades until she convinced Vernon that it was destroying Dudley's self esteem to have the freak do better than him.

And on some level, it was. Dudley Dursley, truly, had the self esteem of a teenage girl. It was obvious why; the boy was overweight to the point he was a blubbering ball of lard already, he was almost certainly teased by the other kids at the school, was dumb as a rock on top of that and he was also rude and irresponsible to cap it off.

Despite being only seven years old, Dudley Dursley was already shaping up to follow in his father's footsteps, although he lacked the excuse of the brain damage an inexpert mind wiper had unintentionally harmed his father with.

All Petunia wanted to do was help him, and if it happened to help her deal with her repressed hatred, then it was only convenient.

They had to make the freak be less than Dudley, in an effort to make Dudley more than he was. It was the wrong approach, but can one fault parents for wishing the best for their son?

It happened to be that during one night of such disciplining, because the boy had actually managed to gain the attention of one of his teachers yet again, that Petunia's fears and hatred had been rewarded.

The door to her immaculately clean home was slammed open when a… blob of cyan goo, roughly the size of Vernon, came flowing through in a disgusting, disturbing display. Once it pushed itself fully into the living room, its face, strangely that of a mongrel of a dog, took shape. It didn't even open its maws or get rid of the dopey, dog-like smile on its face when it began moving towards Petunia, who was holding Harry doubled over her lap, having been in the process of spanking him a few moments prior.

She threw the freak at it, in an effort to distract the damnable blob of goo and then ran towards where her house had a back door to get to the backyard, which was, of course, immaculate and very well kept, through the Freak's efforts.

Now, the gigantic blob of goo didn't care that the thing in front of it was a little child, for it was an animal that gave no fucks about such things. Therefore, it turned to eat Harry, and the scared little boy could do nothing but run in the opposite direction of the thing, finally hitting a wall and nearly pissing himself in terror as the blob kept advancing on him.

Until a bolt of purple lightning came in through the same door the blob of goo had come through and fried it, making it explode and bathe the room in goo.

Hearing the cracking noise that accompanied the bolt, Petunia rushed into the room to find it covered in the substance that had formed the dog faced monster. And instantly, she seized on her freak nephew using his freaky freakiness. It surged the same way her sister's did, whenever she was scared beyond her wits, and solved his problems for him.

Enraged beyond measure, Petunia turned nearly purple and slapped Harry harshly across the face, beginning a long tirade of everything that was wrong with him. She was beyond panicked, beyond angry and beyond frustrated. Had she been in any other state, she would have first ordered him to clean it up, before beginning her tirade.

An odd feeling of coldness stopped her cold, however, and then she turned to look at the strangest pair of eyes she'd ever seen. The first thing she took notice of, were the purple irises. It was just that strange of a color for it. Next were the pupils. The white, strangely shaped pupils that seemed to be a vertical slit with a crescent below it. It was so strange that she didn't even scream at the freakishness of it.

The fact that whoever owned them was floating right in front of her, however, took precedence. Even over the strange, black and fuchsia outfit that the woman, for the dominatrix-inspired outfit she wore left nothing to the imagination, wore. It was simply beyond something Petunia could describe.

"I cannot forgive someone as wretched as yourself!" the woman said, passion dripping from her every word in a way that somehow both made Petunia aroused and terrified at the same time, "unfortunately for you, there is no one to save you from my wrath. I will punish you, and make you rue the day that you dared lay a hand on a child!"

Harry had never thought about religion more deeply than it being a normal thing that normal people have and thus he should have if he was wishing to become normal. At seven, he didn't need anything more than that.

As he watched with fascination as the woman roughly, with great strength and furious anger, unleashed hell upon the aunt that he'd desperately tried to please, he felt the beginning of the blind faith in something, or someone, that he didn't know religion involved. He didn't know who it was that he was seeing make his wishes, secret, repressed and ignored wishes, but wishes nonetheless, come true.

But he knew one thing.

That woman was his favorite person ever, and it didn't hurt that even his childish mind saw her as utterly gorgeous. With her lustrous, dark blue hair and that smile that showed nothing but unrestrained glee in everything she did, even as she used the flat of the serrated blade she held in her hand to discipline his aunt the very same way she had disciplined him before.

Harry didn't even feel the grin that formed on his face at the sight.

It was once she was preparing to leave that she bent down in front of him, putting the tip of her finger, her oh so soft finger, under his chin and tilting his head up so they could see each other eye to eye. "Are you alright, little one?" she asked, her voice soft and velvety, laced with true concern, not the malice that she'd just unleashed on Petunia.

"I… I am…" He said, intimidated by the first show of kindness his memory said he'd ever received.

She smiled, a saintly smile that was nevertheless tainted by the strange allure that permeated the aura she projected around herself. "That is good to know. You can call me Iris Heart, dear, what is your name?"

"I'm… I'm Harry…" croaked the little boy, looking at the woman like she was a Messiah sent from the heavens to save him from the pitiful excuse for a life he'd led at the Dursleys' mercy.

"Okay, then, Harry… If your aunt ever hurts you again, just call for me, okay? I will protect you."

"Who… who are you, really?" asked Harry, full of curiosity, "why would you help a freak like me?"

"I am a goddess, Harry. It's my duty to protect those who believe in me," she explained, patting his hair, "and you believe in me, don't you?"

"Y-Yes!" Harry nearly yelled, conviction flooding his words. "But… I'm a freak… wouldn't you care more about a normal family?"

The woman pulled him into a hug, and Harry felt his head rest in the valley of her sizable breasts, the feel of the cool leather against either side of his neck was a strange sensation, though. "Don't ever let anyone tell you what you are, Harry. Only you can decide that for yourself, okay?"

"Plutie, we have to go," spoke a voice that, while smooth as Iris Heart's, was not laced with the same strange, alluring quality that Iris Heart's held, but instead had an undercurrent of maturity and reliability that was somehow calming.

"But Neppy, the little one is scared…"

"It's a wonder he isn't terrified of you, knowing how you behave when in that form. The Hyperdimensional Dogoo was defeated and I, for one, could really use a good bath."

Iris Heart chuckled in a way that made shivers run down Harry's spine. "If you're so desperate to share the bath tub with me again, Neppy, who am I to deny you?"

The woman who was apparently named 'Neppy' shivered.

They left, behind them, a smiling little boy who waved as they departed, looking awed as neither of them touched the ground to move, instead floating a few dozen centimeters above it. Unbeknownst to him, Harry had finally gained something to believe in, thus derailing the plans and plots of many who would have sought to use him in his future.

All because an annoying, massively overweight crossbreed between a dog and a slime had made its way to Privet Drive on a warm night.

* * *

I felt I needed to do at least one stupid crossover that had no business existing, and I figured this one would be it. I guess I've gotta make one thing very, very clear:

This will NOT, I repeat, this will NOT, be a fic in which Harry gains an implausible harem from all the goddesses in the Neptunia series. I've seen this is common when dealing with crossovers with the Naruto and Harry Potter franchises, where the crossover character, usually a self insert wearing Harry or Naruto's skin, overshadows the other series' characters and gets a harem.

To put it simply: This here is canon Harry in terms of base. He doesn't have any weird powerups, doesn't have a ridiculous amount of raw power or any sort of innate super talent that leaves everyone else in the dust. I'm not saying he won't have his own advantages, but he won't be the be-all end-all Uberwizard that can beat up Voldemort with his ass while solving a Rubik's cube with one hand and doing trick beer pong shots with the other. The story is meant to be humorous, and the whole joke will be trying to spread the faith in Planeptune's goddesses in Hogwarts.

Right now, however, I'm debating having Nep Nep attend Hogwarts. Just to annoy the crap out of everyone.


	2. Gaining Faith

Harry Potter was a happy child.

He had a purpose in life. And it was one that he liked very much.

There had been one person, in his entire life, who'd been kind to him for the sake of being kind to him. A being he'd come to accept as the greatest goddess that existed. Admittedly, when he'd tried to profess his faith amidst his schoolmates, he'd been laughed at, and looked at with worried faces by the teachers, who thought his obsession with a very erotically clad woman who'd been spanking his aunt worrisome.

Okay, if you word it that way, it sounds weird. Just... ignore that part, okay? It never happened.

Moving on, Harry was happy despite the setbacks that he faced every day in his most holy of tasks, set upon himself by himself, done only because HE wished to please the goddess who'd brought him under her wing. In fact, she'd actually tried to discourage him.

Plutia, her identity when she wasn't in her divine form, just wanted to nap a lot when she wasn't being forced to work. Her friend and fellow goddess, Neptune (Harry respected her too much to call her anything else than her full name... and he secretly took a guilty pleasure in watching her pout when he didn't call her with any form of cute nickname), had been using the Dursley home as a place to crash in whenever she was kicked out of her home, also known as the Neptower.

She had an odd naming sense.

He was taller than he had been the first time he met them, when they'd seemed so tall. These days, he was actually their same size, barely five centimetres shorter than Neptune's own 146 centimetres of height.

The Dursley family had made their displeasure with the arrangement known. Until they made the error of threatening Harry in front of Plutia, at which point she transformed into Iris Heart. Despite Neptune doing her hardest to prevent her from transforming, usually, this time she was curiously silent when it came to calming down Plutia.

Dudley Dursley had seen what the scary woman wearing leather had done to his parents and had very wisely decided to GTFO before she could turn on him. Later, he learned that threatening Harry was a big no-no. His father would never be able to look at a garden hose without shuddering again.

When they were around, which was distressingly often, it was common for Harry to be picked up by either of the two women, sometimes both. Those days had entire hordes of older boys seated on the curb, opposite the school Harry and Dudley attended, all watching intently at the shapely pair of women that did nothing to hide their blatant sex appeal.

Harry claimed they were goddesses. Many of the boys were inclined to agree. They had weird pupils, true, but they were no less gorgeous for it.

It also made a lot of people jealous.

Vernon Dursley was torn between lusting after the bodacious babes, as Harry had heard Neptune describe their transformed forms once, and hating them because they were obviously freaks beyond freaks.

And then one day, while Neptune and Plutia were playing a fighting game (where the characters were, oddly enough, their transformed forms), with Harry cheering Plutia (much to Neptune's annoyance) on, a letter arrived by owl.

The Owl took a look at Plutia first, seeing that she wore a rather complex and fancy dress that was very clearly ruffled from having been used to sleep as well as pink, fuzzy bunny slippers, and then turned to Neptune, staring hardly at her from its perch on top of the TV (imported from Planeptune, made in the Hello Continent, with parts bought in the PC Continent), looking at the purple dress that it was sure she'd put on backwards, given that the zipper was on the front. Didn't those things usually zip at the back?

Well, it wouldn't have made a difference. Neptune had the body of an eleven year old girl anyway. The hoodie that was clearly a much smaller version of the one she used to wear every day was the only thing covering her arms and neck.

Shaking its head in clear contempt, the owl turned to its prey, who was seated in between the two goddesses in human form, looking positively amused at the expressions the owl made as it scanned him. Nodding, the owl turned to Vernon, the whale of a man, and left both its droppings and a letter on top of his head.

Vernon looked at it. Then looked at it some more. Then he willed it to burst into flames with his eyes. Since it didn't work, and he was wary of throwing a tantrum when that crazy bitch could turn into an oddly arousing crazy freaky bitch, he gave it to Harry. "It's for you."

Harry smiled. "Thank you, uncle Vernon," he said, always the unfailingly polite child that had been raised by a chronically narcoleptic girl (who even now seemed to be about to fall asleep) and her chronically lazy best friend, as well as his abusive uncle and aunt.

Clearly, this was the best method of parenting invented yet.

"What does it say?" asked a curious Dudley, as he kept one eye on the goddesses trying to beat the tar out of each other.

"Something about some school of witchcraft and wizardry, supposedly the best there is. Sounds fun, but I don't know about it... I mean, I do have that scholarship to Smeltings lined up..."

Petunia immediately seized on that. "No, Harry, you MUST go to Hogwarts! There they'll teach you how to use your magic and then you can become an adult and be out of our hair forever! Everybody wins!" declared the too-thin woman, triumphantly.

"That's so totally not fair!" yelled Neptune, jumping from the cushion she'd thrown in front of the TV to sit on.

"But Neppy, you're the one who insisted on playing as each other..." replied Plutia, yawning.

"I thought you didn't practice with playing me! You're really hard to control!" huffed the defeated CPU, sighing dramatically.

"But you were winning until you got distracted by Harry going to school," said Plutia, tilting her head.

"Well, I've never gone to one myself, but I've heard that they force you to eat eggplants in those! And that's just not right!" she spoke, nodding to herself, "you shouldn't go to school, Harry! They'll make you eat eggplants!"

"But you'll waste your tuition then. I bet your parents already left it paid for you. Wouldn't they be sooooo disappointed if you didn't go?" asked Plutia, tilting her head.

"It's decided, then," Harry said, confidently, and Neptune deflated, knowing that even though her argument had been more than enough, Harry would always take Plutia's word over hers,"if that's what Plutia wants, I'll go to Hog wards... wait, no, I don't know who wrote this but it's pretty much chicken scratch. It's Hogwarts, I think."

"Yes, that's it," Petunia said, "now, you wouldn't want to delay, would you?"

"I guess it's time for another time skip..." Neptune said, looking at the fourth wall.

* * *

In King's Cross Station, platform nine and three fourths, twelve centimetres to the left of the third mirror in the women's bathroom, there was a secret room where Women could apparate to and from without startling the firsties or the muggles, and it was soundproofed.

There was a similar one in the men's bathroom, but it smelled not unlike urine, so Albus Dumbledore chose not to use it for such an important meeting. After warding it against apparation, which was a very much dick move, Albus requested an explanation on just what the fuck had happened from one Harry Potter.

"And that's pretty much how it went," Harry said to a rather old man that showed every one of his hundred years of age by his wrinkled face and obscenely long beard. Harry kind of wanted to use it as a pillow, if only because it was so tempting to follow in Plutia's teachings and sleep whenever possible.

"... Normally, I would call your story farfetched," began Dumbledore, nodding at Harry, "but given that the goddesses you mentioned are here with you," he gestured towards the women who each had one hand on each of Harry's shoulders in a gesture of support, "I'm inclined to accept it as holding at least some truth."

Albus noticed that the one with the fuchsia irises had a smile on her face that was frankly more terrifying than anything Voldemort could throw at him.

The only scarier thing had been when he walked in on his brother Aberforth and the harem of goats he'd made for himself. Sometimes, not even erasing your memories helps with the nightmares.

"Headmaster," the scary one began, her voice husky and charged with seductive energy that had Dumbledore forcibly reminding himself that he preferred wizards and was proud of it, dammit, "I worry for my little Harry's safety..." she purred, smiling widely at the effect she had on him, seeing the shivers of fear her voice sent through men always cheered her up.

"I assure you, Miss Iris Heart, that the castle of Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain..." Albus tried to defuse the situation as best he could. That woman was a goddess, or at least she said she was. The old headmaster was almost completely certain that she was not human, whatever she was. While not an adept at it, Dumbledore had some experience trying to discern the nature of people through a combination of subtle mental probes as well as basic aura reading.

What he'd managed to glean was that the woman was gleefully sadistic, as in she really did get off on pain, and that she was very powerful. Enough that he was almost certain no amount of physical force would be enough to deal her damage.

By comparison, the other woman, the one with the twin tails of braided hair that nearly reached the ground and the blue eyes that were bright and void of malice, seemed like a reasonably responsible woman. Probably the one who kept the scary one in check. Of course, he only had an idea of what their transformed states' thoughts were like.

"Plutie, I know what you want, but you really shouldn't go to Hogwarts... Mini Histy will get mad. Again," explained the purple haired woman, both skirting the line of causing Dumbledore a stroke and giving him incredible relief.

"Hm. I have left IF, Compa and Mr. Mouse to run Planeptune. The time in this world passes much faster than in our own... It would be at most, a week in our worlds..."

Purple Heart sighed at Iris Heart's sexually charged voice. She had been, long ago, immunized to that part, even if there was still something that appealed to her base instinct to flee from a predator in it. "Well, I can go instead," she offered.

"Excuse me, but..." Dumbledore began, only to hear a sound that was not unlike the wail of steel on steel. Suddenly, where the purple haired woman stood was now a little girl with a noticeably lighter hair colour. The revealing, provocative and fancy leotard exchanged for clothes that seemed to be even more stuck in time than the Wizarding World.

She looked to be eleven.

"I get all stuffy when I'm on that form too long!" cried Neptune with a smile, stretching her body, "and I'm always being responsible and stuff, it's totally boring! Just like Nep Jr., she was just too responsible to be funny! I think... It doesn't matter anyway! I need to be slick, stylish and totally awesome!"

"... Who are you talking to?" asked Dumbledore, finally feeling how his students felt when he acted like a barmy old coot. "Moving on, I guess it'd be easy to arrange for one more student this year, though... are you capable of magic, the way wizards do?"

"Yep! I've played around with Harry's wand and the spells that the McKitty woman showed us!"

"Neppy, you are so talented..." the one that was still transformed purred in such a way that it had all three of the others shuddering and thinking of Margaret Thatcher naked on a cold day.

"Well, I guess we can get you a wand from Ollivander's later. Other than that, I have no objections to you accompanying young Harry to ensure his safety while he's in Hogwarts. Please, go gather your trunks, I wish to have a word with Harry alone."

The way that Iris Heart giggled when the two women departed ,speaking about the clothes Neptune would need to obtain to attend Hogwarts, made Harry think that the year would be plenty interesting. He just had to make sure Neptune wouldn't find another tsundere to tease. It'd break poor Noire... well, both of the Noires' hearts.

"Harry, my boy, what interesting guardians you've obtained," began Dumbledore in a jovial tone, "though I hope they won't cause problems?"

"Neptune is very laid back," because Harry wouldn't call her lazy unless it was directly to her face, "she shouldn't have any problems fitting in. Anyway! I've just remembered that I actually have a job here! See, Mistress Iris Heart told me once that their power is based on faith. The more people who have faith in them there are, the more powerful they become. They're not very powerful here because there aren't any believers in them. So I thought that I could help them by getting converts to the Planeptune goddesses! And I wanted to know if that would be okay."

"Of course it'd be okay, so long as it helps yours and the castle's safety," agreed Dumbledore, "but I sense something else is needed."

"That's right. It's not just having faith in them, but people must also play their consoles for them to get the power necessary to form Sharicite, which is the crystallized form of human faith," Harry explained, smiling. Seeing that Dumbledore looked lost at the mention of consoles, Harry started on an explanation of what they were, how they worked and how fun they were.

"Fascinating," Dumbledore remarked, "I do believe that talking about them during muggle studies would gain quite a bit more attention than what our current professor knows..." he mused, rubbing his beard, "very well then... This idea intrigues me. Can your friends help me set up a room in Hogwarts that would function as this 'Arcade' place you described?"

Harry grinned widely.

Meanwhile, at the station next to the train...

Fred, George, Percy and Arthur Weasley were stunned, with their jaws hanging from their mouths, at the most stunning example of female beauty they'd ever seen in their lives, as a woman wearing what could only be passed as lingerie, made out of leather, stuffed a set of similar underwear, much smaller, on a large trunk. "Oh, come on, Neppy! They look so good on that tiny body of yours!"

"I said no! If I wear leather like you I'll look totally like a villain! And I had enough of that in the last game!" cried desperately the little girl that had to be her daughter. The little girl was already very cute herself, which meant that she would probably turn into a stunning beauty like her mother.

Fred and George immediately made a decision, they NEEDED to become close to that girl. She would certainly turn into the babe to end all babes in the future, and they wanted to be there as soon as possible.

Ron, meanwhile, was discussing the many reasons why you should listen to Percy with his mother, and thus missed it all entirely. Ginny was looking for the Boy-Who-Lived-So-We-Could-Hyphenate-His-Name, but couldn't see him anywhere.

Unbeknownst to them all, the first year of Hogwarts was already beginning to shape into one of the most interesting ones of all time, ever since Tom Marvolo Riddle discovered the spell that made anagrams out of people's names and started on a campaign of finding who had the most ridiculous anagrams for their name.


	3. Gaining Faithfuls

The Hogwarts Express rocked, Harry decided. Oh, it was slow. He'd spent one summer in Plutia's Gamindustri and seen the end result of having four nations in constant competition with each other, particularly in Planeptune where for some reason the people had decided that, if the only CPU they got (because very few people were aware of the other two, that's how little they worked!) was a crappy one, at least they'd have the best hardware.

They couldn't compete with the larger nations, most importantly Lowee, where on Minister Badd's suggestion Blanc had created what was, even today, the most popular console, but Planeptune held itself afloat despite the fact that their CPUs, all three of them, were terrible at their job.

Seriously, even Peashy, who looked all of nine and was just as mature, somehow worked better in Leanbox than three adult CPU with experience could work in Planeptune. Of course, everyone blamed it on the hypnotic movement of Yellow Heart's... tracts of land.

The train was slow, yes, but it had the most comfortable seating he'd ever found himself in, and while it might've looked clunky and noisy, magic did wonderful work in muffling its sounds.

Harry loved it for a simple reason.

It was excellent to do Plutia's most favourite activity ever.

Napping!

So Harry and Neptune, both of which had grown up to appreciate the times when they could be lazy, though only Harry considered there were times in which he had to work too, had made it a point to throw their robes over themselves and sleep until they got there. It wasn't that long a trip, only a couple hours, but it was a couple hours of blissful sleep...

... That a bushy haired bitch interrupted. Harry cursed her, from the bottom of his heart, cursed her to a tortuous death at the hands of the Lady Iris Heart. Okay, maybe that was a bit much.

"Uhm... sorry to wake you up," the girl called, having the decency to show her embarrassment with a nice and healthy blush.

"You will be sorry you- you- you nap breaker!" yelled Neptune, throwing her pillow (a bunched up spare robe) at the bushy haired girl's face.

Harry yawned. "Are we there yet?" asked the sleepy boy.

"I don't know how you can sleep right now! I'm so excited I don't think I'll be able to sleep at night!" the girl spoke, brimming with the excitement she spoke of and clearly bemused by their dismissal of it.

Neptune shrugged. "I was sleepy."

Harry saw the girl's palm meet her face. "I guess introductions are in turn. I'm Harry, and this is Neptune," he explained, yawning once again, "we were kinda enjoying our nap, so if you could..."

The girl blushed in embarrassment again. "Oops, sorry. My name is Hermione Granger," she didn't even stop to question Neptune's odd name. With one like hers, it was to be expected, however.

"Okay then. I'll go back to sleep."

"Wait! I'm looking for a toad! A boy named Neville lost one!" Hermione explained, seeing them blink.

"Was it made of chocolate? 'Cause I ate like three dozen of those. They were yummy," explained Neptune, rubbing her tummy as she did. Hermione ignored that one entirely.

"Wait! I know something I can help! That McGonagall woman, when you dropped my wand, did something and it jumped to her hand, right up from the ground. I think she said 'Accio Wand' or something like that," said Harry, nodding to himself, "but I don't know how to do it."

"But one of the upper years might! Yeah, that can work!" Hermione yelled, and Harry could almost see the light bulb on top of her head light up. She was off, dashing to find an upper year, before Harry could even say Bye.

Similarly, a rather well groomed looking boy wandered past the door, took a peek in, and smiled a smile that he probably thought was charming, but just looked kinda funny to Harry. He'd been around a being charged with raw sexuality for far too long for this kid to affect him. Besides, he was pretty sure he didn't swing that way. Then again, he couldn't be sure just yet.

"Hello," the boy began, "my name is Draco Malfoy. These are Crabbe and Goyle. Don't bother with their names, they're unimportant," he continued, gesturing to the boys in order. To Harry, they weren't different enough to warrant description other than 'looks like the offspring of a troll and a leprechaun where the mother was doing drugs during her pregnancy'.

Goyle nodded. "That's true. Pretty much everyone calls us by our surnames," he said in a surprisingly smooth and cultured voice.

"Even our mothers and fathers," commented Crabbe, his voice soft like silk.

"Sometimes, I think I'm the only person who knows their names," Malfoy said, rolling his eyes, "anyway, I thought I'd introduce myself to the hero of the Wizarding world. You don't need to introduce yourself, you are after all a well known figure."

"So that's a thing, huh," Harry said, nodding, "well, I guess I'll go back to sleep now."

The boy was left gaping as Harry crashed back onto his seat, eyes closed and a blissful smile as he returned to dreamland. "W-What!? How... how can he just ignore me!? ME!? Draco Malfoy, heir to Malfoy!"

Neptune, meanwhile, rubbed sleepily at her eyes and moaned as the light chose that moment to pierce through the tinted glass of the train window. Then she sniffed. "Oooh, smells like tsundere!" she exclaimed, looking around.

"... I don't know what this tsundere is, but it sounds humiliating," commented Crabbe.

"Somehow, I can tell that it fits our young friend exactly right," added Goyle.

"You're my age, numbnuts!" cried Draco with great anger.

Both of them grunted. "So we are," they chorused, "yet it seems not." Goyle finished.

"... Let's just go..." Draco said, sighing.

"You sound like you should eat more sugar!" Neptune spoke, nodding to herself.

The boy huffed, turned around and left.

Neptune smiled as she watched the blond little boy go. She already knew where she'd get most of her fun this year. Very few knew that while most of the time she annoyed people accidentally, with Noire it was mostly on purpose. She really, really liked teasing tsundere people. While the Draco boy was not quite as cute when he was flustered as Noire was, it was still funny for her to tease him.

The boy looked like he would shape up into a decently attractive guy. Then again, after seeing Anonydeath's face, just about no one could compare. Men should not be allowed to be that pretty. His heart might be that of a pure maiden, but his face was the one of a seductive incubus.

Then again, she owed him even more than that because he was the proof that Noire was a lesbian. Neptune was as close to asexual as you could get (her body was not physically mature enough to let her hormones affect her in any significant way) and even she had seen that Anonydeath was incredibly attractive. Blanc's body was even younger than her own, so she probably never got past the whole 'boys have cooties' phase, physiologically speaking.

Of course, Neptune thought those things with much shorter and less specific words, but if I'd subjected you to her inner mental rant, you'd have punched me in the face for wasting your time with unintelligible babble.

In the end, after much deliberation, Neptune concluded she was hungry and should seek the food cart again. Clearly, she should have brought one of the Compas with her in this adventure. Or maybe IF, since Neptune used her cellphone more than her. Mostly because she could never be arsed to look for the phone when it became time to order something to eat.

The faces of the pizza delivery boys, all pimply and hairy in all of the wrong places, were always amusing when they saw her in full divinity come out to receive the pizza herself. Well, when they weren't openly drooling at the sight of the snug fit her Processor Unit's Core was.

Grabbing Harry by one leg, Neptune dashed out of the room, all thoughts of sleep forgotten in favour of thoughts of food. Harry, as taught by Plutia, didn't wake up from the movement until after he'd hit his head against the ground. When he did, he crossed his arms and enjoyed the ride. Before long, he was actually flying because of the momentum Neptune's dash had picked up.

It was kinda funny to think that someone with such a positively tiny frame was most likely the strongest person on earth at the moment, physically speaking. Neptune was pants at her world's magic, but it seemed that she was decent enough to be considered as a student for Hogwarts. Either that or they had really, really low standards.

They probably had low standards. Neptune's INT Score was so low, Harry was certain it could pierce through the floor. It was only his respect for her, and what she represented, that made him tell her that to her face. Neptune was the kind of girl who'd just laugh at that. Sometimes, the low INT score helped one be happier.

They soon came to a crashing halt, Harry slamming face first against the back of the one dragging him, causing them both to end sprawled on the floor... with of course, Neptune's prodigious luck helping her be on top. "For the record, I knew this would happen," spoke the Potter boy as he laid, face down on the floor.

Neptune grinned sheepishly. "How much money have you got left?"

That had been interesting. Neptune demanded to ride the cart many, many times, as they went to and from the vault that held all of Harry's money. Harry had a fortune that Dumbledore had been holding in trust for Harry, until he reached the majority of age. Apparently, the old man had a shrewd business sense that had allowed him to keep withdrawing and withdrawing money to fund his own endeavours, but he always put all that money, with a little extra, back into the Potter Vault.

Harry didn't particularly mind. The gold was so much that he was certain he wouldn't manage to spend it all throughout his entire life. And Dumbledore had put it to better use than he would have. In fact, Harry was considering making a huge donation to Hogwarts, maybe to make a muggleborn fund or something like that.

If only because Petunia had confessed that Lily had suffered from economic problems during her years at Hogwarts, because their parents could barely afford it, one of the other reasons that Petunia had been so angry at Lily for so long, and even now.

"I want more chocolate frogs! I want more of everything, actually!" Neptune yelled, standing up and pumping her fist in clear exhilaration at the thought of having infinite money to eat food with.

"My, how enthusiastic!" the woman with the trolley said, "please, honey, have as much as you like, so long as your boyfriend pays!"

Neptune laughed.

"You know, normally girls get all flustered and angry when someone makes that accusation," Harry remarked from where he was, still face down so his voice was muffled, raising a hand with a finger pointing to the ceiling, "but I guess you're nowhere near tsundere enough for that to work. Anyway, lady, I'm not so much her boyfriend as I am a wonderful, wacky walking wallet."

"Ooh, nice, I love alliteration!" the sweets-bearing witch spoke, smiling widely.

"Gimme gimme!" interrupted Neptune, taking about a dozen more frogs and a jar with a lot of beans in it.

Then a redheaded boy popped his head out of his compartment. "Hey, what's taking so long?" he asked, looking at the trolley where Neptune was withdrawing tons upon tons of food, "... I think I'm in love," the boy said as he watched Neptune walk with a plastic bag she'd pulled out of nowhere filled to the brim with Wizarding treats.

"My little brother is growing up!" cried a proud-sounding voice from inside, "I'm so proud of you for noticing girls this early, Ron! Maybe if we train you right, you can be the next Bill!" though there was a subtle difference in pitch and tone that told Harry that, while similar, they were probably two different voices in very good synchronization.

"Yeah, right!" an amused voice countered, "We've all tried to recreate Bill's exploits. It cannot be done."

"That, my dear brother, is because you keep giving up-"

"-At the worst of times! If you weren't such a prat-"

"-You'd have probably gotten half your year!"

"Shut up, you two! I'm monogamous, dammit! ONE of us has to be!"

Harry blinked, noticing that Neptune had stricken a conversation with the red head that had popped out of his compartment, and they were now sharing food. Apparently, Neptune had heard his plight, about how little money he and his three brothers had to buy treats with, and taken pity on him.

Of course, she'd done so with Harry's money. Given that he had practically unlimited funds, though, he didn't mind all that much. Besides, it was for a good cause.

"Best. Year. Ever." The trolley pushing witch spoke as she departed from that car, smiling satisfied at the amount of sweets she'd sold in just two compartments.

"Hey! You're Harry Potter!" the redhead's voice rang out as soon as Harry lifted his face from the floor. He'd had half a mind to settle down there and just sleep off the massive pain that Neptune's surprisingly heavy, small frame had caused him, but then he decided to fuck it.

He was hungry too.

"My name is Harry Potter. You stole my sweets. Prepare to die," the Boy-Whose-Name-Has-Hyphens spoke, a cold and serious tone in his voice.

The redhead let out a strangled yelp and tried to scurry back.

Neptune, meanwhile, simply smiled and shoved a still-squirming chocolate frog into his mouth.

"Are we sure those things are dead? 'Cause I feel it jumping in my stomach," Harry informed her after swallowing, "which is funny. I'm sure I chewed the damn thing..."

"... It's chocolate, mate, it's not even alive to begin with. It's just animated with magic, or so I've heard," the redhead spoke, shaking his head, "my name's Ron Weasley."

"So it is. Well, you know mine," Harry said, "and before you ask, no, I don't mind you using my money to buy food with. Trust me, you can't spend as much of it as Neptune does even if you try," he said, gesturing at the girl who was even now wrestling with a trio of particularly nasty chocolate frogs that set about avenging their fallen comrades.

"Somehow, I can't stop watching it," Ron said, as he watched Neptune get her ass kicked, "will she just crush their heads with her hands? It's the easiest way to deal with the uppity ones..."

"It's like a train wreck that you're told to ignore, it's just not gonna happen," Harry informed, him, smiling as he watched Neptune corner one of them, only to get drop kicked on the side of the head by one that was missing one of its front paws... hands... whatever.

"Hey there. I'm Percival, but everyone calls me Percy," the tallest of the redheads on the compartment said, as the three walked out to meet with whoever had caught his little brother's attention.

"Prepare for trouble!" spoke a falsetto voice.

"And make it double!" another, a fake deep baritone added.

Harry looked at them and smiled. "Didn't know you guys got Pokemon. Thought you didn't watch TV at all, from what Dumbledore told me."

Both of the rather gangly and tall redheads blinked. "What's a 'Pokemon'?"

"And a TiVi for that matter."

Harry looked at them, blinked and then began to cry. "You poor, lost souls! You've never played a videogame!?"

Neptune's head snapped to attention. "This is an emergency! BEHOLD!"

A column of light covered them, and then, next to Ron and the corpses of three brutalized chocolate frogs stood one of the most gorgeous examples of the fairer gender that any of the four brothers had ever seen. And she was looking at them with pity in her eyes. A pity that they never noticed, since their eyes were transfixed onto her almost fully visible breasts; the skintight material that held them in place clearly didn't do anything about hiding them from view.

"Now, pay attention to me, I'm gonna give you guys a very important lecture, and I need you to pay attention very carefully, okay?"

All four redheads nodded dumbly, following the bounce and sway of those magnificent orbs of flesh.

Purple Heart pulled the portable console her little sister had inspired and helped design. "This, is a console..."


	4. Gaining Hogwarts

Their father knew nothing about how cool the muggle world was, Ron, Fred, George and Percy chorused in their minds, as they sat huddled around the still mouth-wateringly sexy form of Lady Purple Heart, whose colour motif was very clear, and looked at the screen that showed them something that was not all that different from Wizarding photographs, yet a million times cooler.

Purple Heart was in the process of getting her ass kicked by the highest level AI (incidentally modeled to behave much like herself), playing herself against Nepgear and Vert. Funny thing was, while she'd been forced to transform, the other two were smacking her around in their human forms.

Harry, meanwhile, slept on the compartment that they'd abandoned to chill with the Weasleys. Because he was Plutia's disciple first and foremost and her teachings had shown him that sleeping whenever possible is the best thing you can do.

Even if it gets you yelled at by Histoire later, Harry could still say that he loved naps. Perhaps not as much as Plutia, but he still enjoyed the time he spent in dreamland.

Talking about that, Harry was wondering how angry Histoire had been when she kicked out Neptune this time. After all, while time dilation told him that Neptune wouldn't be gone all that long in her world, she would be gone for a considerable length of time regardless. A week might not seem like much, but when you're dealing with the supreme ruler of a nation…

Well, Nepgear was pretty much juggling both versions of Planeptune anyway. Harry mused that Neptune's absence wouldn't make much of a difference. Of course, she'd probably be a lot less fun if she worked all the time. And of course, they'd have never met if Neptune hadn't procrastinated until the last second to get rid of the Dogoo that was jumping dimensions and screwing with people on all ends.

Harry yawned as his eyes parted and he found himself face to face with the bushy haired girl… what was her name? It was pretty unique… yeah, Hermione, that's it. He rubbed his palms against his eyes in an attempt to clear them from sleep and retrieved the same old pair of glasses he'd worn all along, even if it'd never been mentioned so far.

"Are we there yet?" he asked, not caring about the fact that she was blushing and had just jumped away from him into the other seat.

"No," the girl replied, fidgeting a little, "I just wanted to thank you for the idea of the summoning charm and to tell you that Neville found his toad alright."

"Okay, whatever, are we there yet?" he asked again, sighing when she just shook her head, "then why do people keep waking me up?"

"Yo! Harry! You should totally see Percy, he's like a natural and- oooh! Am I interrupting a couple's spat!?" yelled Neptune, rushing in like the proverbial fool, smirking widely, "now, don't take advantage of Harry here just because he's too lazy to say no!" she continued, wagging her finger at Hermione.

"W-W-What!? I'd never-" screamed Hermione, scandalized at the mere idea she'd take advantage of a boy… discounting what she'd been doing when she caught him sleeping earlier.

"If that's all, I'll go back to sleep now, and this time I'll seal the compartment door so nobody can get in," said Harry, yawning.

"We'll be there soon anyway, there's no time for napping," Neptune said, smiling widely at him, in clear amusement at Harry's anguished frown, "but don't worry, I've heard you get a light workload the first week, so we can get a lot of naps!"

"You know, you're surprisingly chipper and eager. Weren't you complaining about the evils of school before we came here?" Harry asked, stifling another yawn and sitting the way he should, not caring about the fact that Hermione was now glaring at Neptune like she'd just committed the worst sin ever.

"Evils of school!?" asked Hermione, once again finding herself scandalized by a comment made by Neptune. It seemed the girl had a gift for annoying the crap out of people.

"Of course!" Neptune spoke solemnly, nodding at her, "after all, they force you to eat eggplants there! And eggplants are the source of all evil!"

Hermione felt her jaw hit the floor before the words fully registered. "Yeah, I'm going to ignore that one entirely. Don't think my brain could wrap itself around that much stupid at once."

"Welcome to my world," Harry grumbled, "at least it's really, really funny when it's happening to somebody else. Be glad that you're nowhere near tsundere enough for her to actively pick on you."

Neptune laughed, scratched the back of her neck and adjusted one of the cuffs on her wrists.

Hermione let her palms meet her face and resisted the need to sob from the fact that she'd, accidentally, became friends with the laziest thing since the word 'lazy' was shortened and his dorky, dumb-as-a-brick best friend. Then again, she couldn't quite bring herself to wipe the smile off her face when she saw their banter at each other. It really was funny when it happened to someone else.

"And that's why you should never question the awesomeness of thigh highs!" finished Neptune, hands on her hips, face solemn as if she'd just dispensed sagely advice. Harry nodded in clear appreciation.

Hermione only recalled bits and pieces of that particular conversation on the methods of insanity, but the fact that they mentioned some sort of absolute area that had to do with how little skin was exposed between the end of the skirt (using Neptune's noticeably short skirt as a demonstration) and the socks or boots worn (again, using Neptune's very high thigh highs as a demonstration). Apparently, Neptune herself was a Grade A or something.

Something about a Grade S was mentioned, but Hermione was wondering how that would work.

Hermione shook her head. "You guys should get changed, we'll be there in a few minutes," said the bushy haired girl, gesturing at her robes and the uniform below it, straight out of an antiquated and very gray private school, accented with the black tie and socks. Yes, I like the uniform from the movies, sue me.

"Oh. Right. That. Plutie made me a uniform just before we left!"

"In the five minutes between the time you left and me and Dumbledore joined you?" asked Harry, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep! Plutie's the best... uh… sewer? No that doesn't sound right…"

"Seamstress," clarified Hermione, interrupting Neptune's train of thought as the younger looking girl floundered for the word that she wanted to use.

"Yes, right, that!" finished happily Neptune, before grabbing the zipper in front of her purple jersey dress.

Without a second doubt, she yanked it down… and revealed the uniform under it. Somehow. Despite the fact that the gray skirt was longer. And the gray vest meant that it should've made her seem fat.

"… I'm not even gonna question that one," Hermione said, shaking her head, "but you WILL tell me how to change that fast."

"It's really easy! It's all in the wrist!" explained Neptune, demonstrating a flick of her wrist, "though we couldn't get a wand in time… Oh, well, I guess I'll pick up a stick somewhere and use that."

Hermione looked as if someone had just told her that bananas have a secret society and are planning to take over the world. "Bu- wha- how-"

"Mr. Dumbledore told me magic is possible without a wand, but it's supposed to be really hard…" said Harry with a frown, scratching his chin, clearly still sleepy.

"You need a proper wand! Wands aren't just pieces of wood, they're really hard to make and every single one of them is unique! They have to have a special core for us to be able to do magic through them!" explained Hermione, rubbing the bridge of her nose and trying to control her volume as best as she could, "you can't just simply replace your wand with a stick!"

Neptune shrugged. "So long as it works, what's it matter?"

"… I'm gonna start beating you now. I'm not sure when I will stop," threatened Hermione, advancing on Neptune with her hands poised for strangulation and punching at the same time. Somehow, Harry thought that Hermione didn't care she was threatening someone who could, potentially, poke her hard enough to send her across the compartment.

Neptune looked utterly confused. Then she seemed to have an idea… but it was stopped when she was grabbed by the neck. Hermione might not have been in her proper mind, but she was very thorough when it came to her reasons why Neptune had pissed her off. Apparently, such blatant disregard for her words angered Hermione.

"Lively as ever. I wonder what Plutia's doing…" Harry mused.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Ultradimension Planeptune…

"PLEASE, I SWEAR IT WASN'T INTENTIONAL!" yelled Nepgear, weeping as she tried to squirm away from Iris Heart's lap.

"I know," Iris Heart said, smiling in a way that left no doubts about whether or not she was enjoying this, "but I know your little girlfriend likes seeing your butt all red and marked, so…"

"Oh, goodness!"

Meanwhile, Uni was drooling in a corner…

* * *

"… because it tasted like baked potatoes," answered Neptune.

"How does that explain your ability to do wandless magic!?" it seemed Hermione was so frustrated with Neptune she'd actually looped all the way back to calm and then gotten angry again. Harry had to give her credit. Usually, his uncle, the only other person Neptune exasperated to that level, turned a very pretty shade of purple by this point.

"Hey, I don't remember changing into my robes," said Harry, looking down at himself to notice the fact that he was wearing a male version of the uniform under the open robes.

"For the sake of convenience, I changed you while you were looking at the meanwhile scene," Neptune explained, "and that way we don't have to worry about getting sued for showing underage nudity. The most we can get away with is pantyshots, I think..." then she paused, before staring flatly at the fourth wall, "no, I'm not doing it, you pervert!"

... I'll let that one go. This time.

"What the hell are you talking about?! Urgh, you're so frustrating!" Hermione yelled.

"Oh look we're here," Harry said, his voice amused as the train suddenly stopped.

"How convenient!" Neptune yelled from where Hermione was still trying to choke her, unsuccessfully.

They got off the train in a manner that made them resemble lethargic sloths (because Harry still wanted to go back to sleep, Neptune was just that lazy and Hermione was tired after trying to murder Neptune for the majority of the time they spent in the same compartment) and followed a giant of a man that made the tallest of normal men seem positively tiny by comparison.

Harry thought he was awesome from the get go.

Neptune thought about how being taller could help her reach the higher cupboards, so she wouldn't have to rely on her little sister to get them for her anymore.

Hermione was left mouth agape at the sight.

Ron Weasley thought about crumpets.

Draco Malfoy thought about whether his mom would be proud about how he had become a non-hostile acquaintance of Harry Potter.

Elsewhere in the crowd, Susan Bones, Hanna Abbott and Neville Longbottom questioned why they were included in this paragraph, despite never having been mentioned before in the story.

"Okay, this is getting too meta," Neptune said, rolling her eyes and interrupting the pointless narration, as they followed the giant of a man onto a set of boats.

No more than three or four on a boat, depending on size, and a boat for the giant, and then they were off to a world of wonderment and enchantment, as Neptune's snores completely broke any mystifying atmosphere that might have been possible. Hermione took great relish in smacking her. Harry used the skill he had trained the most, falling asleep with his eyes open, to avoid injury.

The fourth member of their boat, a girl by the name of Millicent Bulstrode as she introduced herself, thought them all idiots. She was right.

Meanwhile, Neville Longbottom found himself struggling to hold onto his toad, Trevor, who was very clearly terrified at the similarities it detected between itself and the oafs that shared the boat, one Crabbe and one Goyle.

Draco Malfoy, meanwhile, learned why women are scary when scathing commentary about him was run by one Tracey Davis. On the flipside, he'd learned like six dozen new insults, so it wasn't a total loss, even if his ego had taken a big hit. It wouldn't be such a huge problem if the other girl he shared a boat with, one Daphne Greengrass, hadn't admitted to a lesbian crush on his mom.

Seriously, what sort of whore had his mom been in her youth? So far, just about every one of his future classmates' mothers he'd met turned out to have had a fling with his mother at some point. It didn't help that most of their husbands had been with his father. Apparently, both were very popular with their same gender.

That wasn't too pleasant to Draco, as he had inherited his mother's taste for the fairer sex, even at such a young age as his.

Meanwhile, Hanna Abbott, Susan Bones and the ghost of Christmas Past, also known as Seamus Finnegan to his friends, discussed the finer points of why one should never anger the goalkeeper in any sort of sport, particularly when that keeper owned a broom he could smack you with.

Apparently, Amelia Bones had been one mean bitch when she'd been Hufflepuff's keeper, some years ago.

Neptune yawned as she was hauled to her feet, but she dutifully walked along Harry, even though she was more asleep than awake still, and just behind the giants.

The giant exchanged words with a mean looking old lady whose gray hair clearly needed to be let down before it was frozen in that incredibly-tight looking bun, and then she began leading them inside the most authentic looking castle Neptune and Harry had ever seen. Mostly because it was the first castle either of them had seen.

Technically, Neptune had been to a very old castle that had once housed a CPU of Planeptune, but are you really expecting her to remember that much?

"Hey! I've heard we've got to wrestle a troll, and based on how we beat it, they'll sort us into a specific house!" an excited Ron Weasley spoke.

"Please, Weasley, as if we' have to do such a thing!" Malfoy sneered, incensed at the idiocy expressed in such a sentence. How could anyone think that they'd have to fight a troll? Then again, the headmaster WAS reputed to be barmy beyond anyone else… "ah, shite, it might actually be true!" he said, panicking.

Neptune rolled her eyes, "that wouldn't be too bad," she reasoned, considering that while she had lost many, many levels due to laziness once again, the level cap last time had gone to just below four digits, so despite losing the majority of her level, she was still powerful enough to take just about anything in a physical fight, but her INT score remained low, hence fearing something else… "it could be worse! They could make us fill… a questionnaire! And no matter what answer you choose, it's always wrong!"

Everyone shivered, for some reason scared of something so simple. It had to be the voice and tone she'd said it with. Harry would've told them she was a natural at telling ridiculously silly stories and making them scary, but that would mean they had to explain what a scary story was or why they would tell them. Wizards were notoriously out of touch with the world…

"Hey, Nep Nep, if you can do those things you could do in the game, then you could beat a troll easily, right?" asked Ron, full of wonder.

"Yep! It would be easy peasy!" she said, nodding to him and smiling widely, "but it's no fun if you're given an overpowered character in your party right from the start! It'd be like cheating! Or buying the DLC weapons at the start of the game! It takes all the challenge right out! And that's no good." she said, dispensing sagely advise to the humbled Weasley.

"Truly, your wisdom is infinite," Harry said dryly.

"Of course it is! I'm the main character!" she countered, cheekily.

"Oh, okay then…" Ron receded.

"Uhm… I get that you're using RPG metaphors, but… what's DLC?" asked a curious boy whose name shall not be revealed because I can't be arsed to come up with one.

"This world is stuck in the nineties!" cried Neptune, falling back into Hermione's arms, "oh, the despair!"

"We're just STARTING the nineties, you dumbass!" countered Hermione.

"… Your point?" Neptune asked, smiling from where she looked up at her, "anyway, you remind me of a friend. She really loved books and got all pissy and sweary when she was angry! You're a lot more developed than her, though!"

Harry just laughed when Hermione unceremoneously dropped her on the floor.

* * *

So... people don't like this story enough to leave anything, not even a simple 'hey it was a decent read'. But that's okay. I don't care. I-It's not like I want your approval or anything, okay!?

Coming next: The Sortage! Wait, no that's not right. The Sorting! In which Dumbledore proves he wasn't idle these hours they took to get to Hogwarts while he just apparated there!


	5. Gaining Hufflepuff

Minerva McKitty, as the first years had dubbed her (somehow, she actually secretly liked that it made her seem more approachable, since she'd always envied Albus' ability to make himself look like an approachably warm and kind old guy), felt like punching someone. She felt like punching that someone hard enough her own fist would break.

The person she wanted to punch was a girl by the name of Neptune, the originator of the McKitty nickname, as well as the one who'd sidetracked her introduction of the house system to ask her if they would be force-fed eggplants. The nerve of that girl! She didn't know what the hell Albus had been smoking when he allowed her in, but she could already tell that the girl was bad news. The same way that she could tell that Severus should really, really think about washing his hair.

She'd only seen so troublesome a student when she'd seen Sirius Black sorted in her very own House of Gryffindor. Except it was a different kind of troublesome.

The girl would be a dozen headaches per week, at least…

After giving them a brief explanation of the house system (break rules, we take away points, peer pressure will do the rest), a brief explanation of the many reasons one should not tug on Dumbledore's beard unless you had a very good reason (and no, being dared to do it was not a good enough reason) as well as a faint warning that Dumbledore would, quite likely, appear pants-on-head retarded that night.

Laughter accompanied her until they entered the great hall, ready to be sorted. Where, indeed, Dumbledore was wearing a very tiny pair of pants as a hat. Everyone was left stunned. Neptune thought it was funny and complimented the headmaster on his fashion.

Harry thought Hermione's completely baffled expression the highlight of the night.

The sorting, however, went off with no problems. The hat sang a song that Harry was absolutely certain had failed to rhyme on some parts, and then everything started off with Abbott, Hannah, heading to Hufflepuff, much to their cheers.

Harry took a minute to assess the houses and their reactions to their new members. Slytherin was, by far, the most subdued of the houses, their cheers being more forced than anything else. Many of the older members seemed like unpleasant blokes, and Harry didn't think he'd be too welcome there, even though Malfoy had been moderately friendly to him before. Harry was wondering whether they just hadn't been taught how to smile or if they didn't have anything to smile about.

Just to make some contrast with that house, he switched to the loudest one, Gryffindor. They cheered equally for all that were chosen to join the house of the brave, regardless of alignment, family status or the size of your nose. They were a tad too enthusiastic, though, and given some of the comments he'd heard from some of them, he wasn't feeling too much for him would reside in the house.

The traits they embodied, while certainly commendable, just weren't what he was looking for.

Next was Ravenclaw, the Brainy Bunch. To put it simply, their cheers were half hearted on part of the older students. They didn't seem to put in very much enthusiasm, and most were actually seen reading something on the table. The lower years cheered wildly, even if at a much lower volume than the Gryffindor house had. Harry didn't think he'd fit there. For all he harped on Neptune's low INT level, he didn't think himself an intellectual either. Smart, certainly. Intelligent, perhaps.

But no, he wasn't an intellectual who pursued knowledge for the sake of knowledge. The house, in the end, didn't have what he was looking for either.

It was the final house that caught his interest the most. The house of the Loyal, of the badgers, was the one that embodied the traits that Harry desired, both in himself and in the ones who would become his loyal minions in his most holy of quests. They, unknowingly, embodied the traits of all four houses. Their hard work was proof that they had ambitions that they considered worthy of such an effort, they had the cunning to make their work efficient instead of a waste, they were brave and courageous when it came to the defense of their beliefs and those they owed their loyalty to. They pursued knowledge with the same fervor as the Ravenclaw students, but for different reasons.

Indeed, the badgers were everything that Harry wanted to be. A loyal, hard working servant of his goddess Plutia. Her faith might be weak today, but if Harry could obtain the loyalty of the Hufflepuff House, then he would already have a very large base to start with.

When the hat was placed atop his head, silencing the great hall as they waited for the anxiety-causing sorting, it actually remarked that he was probably the most Slytherin-like student the Hat had ever sorted.

"_Indeed, Mr. Potter, I do believe that you embody the traits of the house better than even the last scion of Slytherin,"_ the Hat remarked, _"fortunately for you, you happen to be eligible for all four houses. You are certainly brave and courageous, your mind is sharp as is your wit and cunning, your ambitions are clear and grand, and, perhaps most interestingly, your loyalty is iron clad. You don't fear hard work or getting your hands dirty to accomplish your goals. To put it very simply, Mr. Potter, I could sort you to any of the four houses without any regrets whatsoever. Ah, but it's been too long since I've done Old Slytherin a service."_

Harry raised an eyebrow, looking slightly puzzled by the hat's words. _"What do you mean?"_ asked the confused boy, thinking rather than speaking, correctly guessing that the Hat could root through his mind and get the thought of the question anyway.

"_Oh, it is quite simple, really. Salazar would be disgusted by the state of his house. He wished to teach those who were destined for greatness, those who truly had the cunning and ability to make their ambitions reality. Alas, his house has become filled with imbeciles with an over-inflated sense of pride, most of which couldn't plan their way out of a wet paper bag,"_ the hat said, clearly believing its own words. Harry hadn't truly seen what the hat spoke of, however, and couldn't quite understand.

So he asked for an explanation, within his mind.

"_It's quite simple, really. Salazar devised the sorting system, and stole me from Godric, something which I will be eternally thankful for as Godric never washed his hair, ever, as both a way to separate the students for easier management and as a way to test those them to see whether they were worthy of his teachings or not. To that end, the four founders imbued me with a part of themselves so I could make the judgement without them having to personally interview every single student that applied,"_ explained the enchanted piece of cloth shaped into a hat, _"Salazar was not particularly fond of the idiots who announced to the world they were the shady, cunning type by loudly boasting about joining his house. In fact, he coined the phrase 'No True Slytherin would BE in Slytherin'."_

Harry felt an overwhelming need to laugh at that point, thinking about how much Slytherin was sounding like a cranky old coot that never was pleased with anything, the kind of old codger that, no matter what you did, would always find fault in your actions, all the while performing secret tests of character or ability on his poor victims.

"_Fact is, he really was pretty much a cranky old codger that was just riding along the other three founders for the chance to make children's lives impossible. It didn't help that he happened to own the actual castle, so they couldn't even kick him out. Anyway, point is, I'll respect the old codger's wishes, if only because I think it appropriately funny at this time. Therefore, you shall be in…"_

The crowd waited, with baited breath, as the conversation between the hat and Harry continued. It had been only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours for everyone, even though nobody was expecting the Boy-Who-Hyphened's sorting to be a simple, two seconds affair as the Heir of Malfoy's had been.

"HUFFLEPUFF!" the hat yelled at last, causing wild cheers to erupt in the Hufflepuff page.

Deciding that he wanted to get the congratulating over with quickly, he moved with great haste towards the table that shared the colours of his uniform now. Impressively useful enchantment, that.

Many, many, many, many and a couple more 'many' thrown in for good measure, people congratulated Harry as he took a seat amongst the other Hufflepuff first years. Some random girl whose name he didn't even know even ruffled his hair. Her vibrant pink hair was very close to Neptune's own pretty shade, so he already liked that girl.

The first years were already living up to his expectations, not so much caring about 'The Boy Who Lacks Hyphens This Time' as much as they cared about 'Harry, who turns out is pretty cool in his own right'. Well, with a little prompting, anyway.

They'd work nicely when he started building his power base amongst them.

Meanwhile, the Sorting Hat requested to be put on top of the Transfiguration Professor's head for a few seconds to have a short chat with her, at which point McGonagall sighed and resigned herself to calling out the name of the student that had already infringed on her nerves, despite only a few seconds of exposure.

"Neptune (no last name given)" the latter part being mumbled, though everyone noticed that the girl didn't have a last name, which was odd as the idea of someone not having a family name was completely alien to the Wizarding World, and the Muggleborn had grown used to that fact, becoming similarly surprised that there could be an orphan who absolutely lacked a last name to give.

Of course, none of them knew that Neptune didn't have a family name because the only family she had was Nepgear, and she wasn't even certain if she'd actually had parents or if she'd just appeared out of nowhere, already the size she was. She certainly had no memories of being smaller.

Neptune merrily moved to the three-legged stool, sat her bum down on it and let McGonagall put the hat on her, even though she thought it clashed horribly with the uniform.

"_Well well, what have we got here? I believe I have never quite seen anything like you, and I'm not certain I'll ever get the pleasure of coming into contact with a being such as yourself, might I ask how I should refer to you?"_ the hat inquired, clearly amused by the prospect of sorting a goddess like Neptune.

This caused the girl in question to smile a wide smile. Never let someone lie and tell you that Neptune is a humble person, for she soaks herself in praise, most often given to her by herself. _"Neptune or just Nep is fine, Mr. Hat!" _she said, her tone belligerent.

"_Very well, Lady Neptune, that shall be it,"_ the hat intoned, stroking Neptune's ego. If it weren't in possession of the dry wit achieved from a thousand years of seeing the most inane thoughts in the minds of children, then it might not have derived amusement from this exchange, _"despite the extraordinary circumstances of your birth, you are not truly all that different from any of the others I have sorted. Accounting, of course, for the greater mental fortitude necessary to endure a life as long as yours is almost certain to be without going, and pardon my expression here, batshit insane."_

Neptune thought back to Rei Ryghts, who despite counting her age in five digits was pretty sane... well, when she wasn't drunk on her own power anyway... She wondered how long she herself would be able to go before she went nutters too. _"Eh! As long as I have games to play and food to eat, I should be fine!"_

"_I'm a bit stumped here," _the hat admitted, sounding even further amused, _"it's the first time I've had a student whom I could not sort into any house with full conviction. I'm not even kidding here. You are lazy as lazy can be, so not Hufflepuff for you. You don't care about the pursuit of knowledge in the least, so not Ravenclaw either. You have plenty of courage and bravery, but you're nowhere near reckless enough for Gryffindor, if only because age has tempered you so, despite your best attempts at concealing this," _the hat then stopped, to let Neptune catch up with its assessment.

"_Are you calling me old!?" _she asked, completely shocked by the mere implication. Usually, she was called immature instead.

"_Of course you'd focus on that," _the hat said, its tone humorous, _"moving on, your ambition in life is to play games, eat food, nap a lot and if you have time maybe do enough work so that your own people don't revolt, so I can't send you to Slytherin either. How does this happen? How come somebody exists that I can't place on a house for their most common traits? Ah, it had to be an existence as complex as that of a goddess! Using my own judgement for this one, meaning I'm totally winging it, I'm gonna go on a limb and place you on your minion's house. Indeed, the house for you is..."_

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

Much cheers were had, and Neptune received a warm welcome by her housemates, much as Harry's had been. Many questions were levelled at her in an effort to get a grasp for her personality, and very little information made it through the obfuscating shield of stupidity, laziness and gluttony that stopped Neptune herself from doing anything productive with her time.

The rest went as you'd expect. The only differences from canon were that Hermione ended up in Ravenclaw (because she didn't want to follow in Dumbledore's footsteps after seeing the man literally show her why the 'Pants On Head Stupid' expression existed) and Crabbe tripped when he tried to sit, disturbing a boy in front of him who nosedived into the hard table, startling the girl in front of him who then met the soul mate she'd always been looking for.

Oh, and the Weasley Twins had nothing to do with it. No sir. They totally weren't the ones who tripped Crabbe. No way. So those detentions were totally unfair. And no, just because the expression on Filch's face when the dung bomb exploded was hilarious doesn't mean you get out of punishment. No, it doesn't matter how much McGonagall laughs when nobody's looking her way.

"Well, I have a couple warnings to give everyone. First, there's a ferocious, killer Cerberus Dog in the third floor. Its name is Fluffy. It's on the only locked room in the third corridor, just don't open it with an unlocking charm and everything should be fine. The next warning is that Mr. Filch has recently updated the list of banned items and posted it in his office, and a copy will be put on the billboards of each common room," began Dumbledore, standing up and somehow managing to command everyone's entire attention despite the goofy manner of dress including lime green robes trimmed in pink and his hat, "for those who are curious, this year we've updated our Muggle Studies curriculum after discovering that we were forcing our teacher to work with material sixty years out of date.

"In the spirit of providing respite for the muggleborn from the pressure of adapting to Wizarding society, Hogwarts has graciously allowed some of her unused classrooms and chambers to be transformed into certain types of muggle entertainment providing rooms. It is my sincerest wish for this to serve as a way to bridge the gap that exists between the pureblood society and the muggle world, in an effort to smooth out the possible conflicts that could exist. The majority of these renovations will be complete by the time the holidays roll around, please look forward to them."

Once Albus had finished the speech, he looked around, to see, as he had expected, most of the Slytherin table being put out by his acquiescing to the 'Make Hogwarts More Comfortable for Muggleborns' reforms that floated around every once in a while.

In order to assuage their parents' wrath, he decided to throw them a bone. "During last summer, someone brought it to my attention that many muggleborns are ignorant as to the customs, rules and laws that the Wizarding World lives by, which can greatly upset those who have grown up with those traditions all their lives. Up until recently, I had lacked a way to counter this problem, but a certain brilliant witch has stepped up with a solution to our problem!" he said, offering mostly the Slytherin table a kind, grandfatherly smile.

"I wonder what he could be blathering on about now..." Draco mused, in some strange way pleased that the main reason why he hated Muggleborns, meaning that they understood nothing of his customs and traditions, coming in with their 'holier than thou' attitudes and calling him and the whole Wizarding world barbaric and ass-backwards, would no longer be such a huge problem.

"This witch is none other than the lady Narcissa Malfoy, who suggested to me that the only way this problem could be fixed would be if someone took the time to teach a class in Wizarding Customs, Tradition and Etiquette here at Hogwarts. Please allow me to introduce our newest teacher, Mrs. Narcissa Malfoy!"

Many cheers, from the upper years, were heard as Narcissa removed the hood of her cloak, revealing the face that could have launched a thousand ships. She offered the entire student body a smile and was pleased to note that the knees of both boys and girls had gone weak right then and there. Her predatory smirk sent shivers down the spines of many.

At that point, Draco wanted to start knocking motherfuckers out, and he didn't know why.

Neptune and Harry, however, were kind of busy eating and didn't pay attention to most of that speech.

Next time, Dumbledore would have to remember to order the elves to bring in the food AFTER he delivered his speech. Oh well, it'd been funny to see their classmates' reactions when they'd asked what the speech had been about.

* * *

AND WE HAVE SORTAGE!

Dumbledore had to decide between the Board of Governors, who wouldn't like the 'Add An Arcade Room' part one bit and possibly alienating Harry and Neptune. In the end, keeping Harry and his goddess bodyguard in case of a sudden case of Voldemort hitting the school won out. Throwing in classes of what amounts to Narcissa teaching muggleborns how to not make asses out of themselves in wizarding society is an attempt at compromising.

I've actually always wondered why there wasn't at least an elective for muggleborns to learn how the wizarding world works. Would've made the transition for them way easier and would probably make them either understand the pureblood society better or at least make them know how to behave well enough to NOT piss off everyone they meet by complete accident.

And yes, the reason Slytherin basically amounts to "an old asshole" in this fic is because this is meant to be goofy, humorous and nonsensical, much like Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory.

For the sake of disambiguation: Nobody knows how old the Hyperdimension CPU are. Not even themselves. The only one who knows anything about them is Histoire, and she's not gonna volunteer the info. So... yeah, for the sake of simplicity, just go with 'Legal Azkabait' except for the very adult Vert.


	6. Gaining Etiquette

Draco Malfoy was having a terrible day.

It wouldn't be so bad if three fourths of his house weren't lusting after his mother, and quite vocal about this fact. Sometimes, he cursed himself and his stupidity in joining the House his parents had been in. Oh, his father had reasoned that while the other houses might be better when it came to hiding the less than savory activities that he would no doubt engage in when it became his turn to join the world of politics, as everyone expected Slytherins to be that type, he had to make friends and connections with the scions and heirs of the other noble houses.

It would have been easy, too, since the average IQ of the Slytherin students fell short of a couple dozen points, and that was being generous. Inbreeding had done a lot of damage to the pureblood community, and the only reason Draco himself escaped its effects was that the REALLY big name and powerful families kept very careful track of their family trees and made DAMN sure to keep married couples as far away from each other in them as possible.

Theodore Nott had been the first to break the ice in the common room with a comment about Narcissa's undeniable hotness. Soon, comments about MILFs started to flow around the room, and Draco decided that remaining there was not worth it. He did not wish to be part of the conversation about whether his mom's preferred white or black underwear.

Especially because he knew the answer, as neither of his parents had been much for modesty when nobody else could see them.

In order to be as far away from his housemates as possible, including Crabbe and Goyle, Draco turned to wandering the halls of Hogwarts. His bad mood and name kept the upper year purebloods and half-bloods from bothering him.

Draco was just looking for a way to let off some steam when he ran into the perfect target. Hermione Granger didn't piss him off just because she was muggleborn and thus a mudblood, no, she pissed Draco off because she had humiliated him in DADA when Quirrel asked questions in class, answering all the questions Draco found himself incapable of answering.

Taking her on a duel would be pointless, neither knew the first thing about fighting and if it came to a fistfight Draco knew he would lose. While he had his father's hair, he had his mother's build and his mother was most decidedly not built for combat. Hermione carried large stacks of books with her everywhere and Draco didn't need to be told that her arms likely possessed enough strength to knock him out.

"Oh, if it isn't the bookworm," Draco said, his voice loaded with the anger he felt at everything and everyone currently in Hogwarts, including his mother for being so goddamn beautiful.

"Malfoy," countered Hermione, dryly, "I would come up with an insulting nickname, but I doubt I could make it as insulting as your name already is."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Is that truly the extent of your wit, Granger? I am disappointed," Draco said, raising a pale eyebrow, "clearly, all that reading you do is just to make up for the difference."

Hermione stiffened.

While he'd only known the girl for a week, Draco knew that what hurt the girl the most was mention of her insecurities regarding her study habits. Mostly because they left her friendless even amongst Ravenclaws, which meant that she retreated further into her books, and everything turned into a vicious cycle.

Oh, Draco so loved it when his victims did the work for him. It helped his self esteem to note that while he had problems himself, at least he wasn't as maladjusted as the people he had his fun torturing.

Then Hermione got a nasty smirk on her face. "You know, Malfoy, I've heard interesting things about your mom," she began, cocky and confident in tone.

"Please, Granger, I assure you that I am well aware of my mother's reputation," the blond boy said, cracking his neck as if preparing for round two of the verbal assault.

Hermione didn't even blink, her smile just widened. "Oh, then I assume you know that she has offered Harry private… lessons?" she said, raising an eyebrow as if daring him to comment. "I've heard that she spends a lot of time in the Hufflepuff common room…"

Draco snorted. "My mother is a lesbian, Granger," he said, shrugging, "so I'm certain that her private lessons for Potter are just that. I imagine that she, like myself, has realized that Potter truly needs the help to make up for the horrendous education the muggles bestowed upon him."

Seeing her main avenue of attack thwarted, Hermione nevertheless pressed on with it. "Knowing what I know, Malfoy, you have no idea how funny your words are to me," her smile said it all as Malfoy suddenly faltered, before regaining mastery of his expression. It was clear to Hermione that the boy had at least been instructed in how to defend himself in a verbal spar, just as Hermione herself had when her mother had taught her how to get back at the bullies (she saved her father's suggestion of just beating them up for the especially annoying ones).

"And what, pray tell, would you be implying here?" said Malfoy, his tone carefully guarded and controlled.

"Oh, nothing much, really," said Hermione, closing her eyes and shrugging in an exaggerated manner, "it's your mother, Neptune and Harry's business what they do behind closed doors, don't you think?"

Malfoy growled. "Great! Now I don't only have to deal with my own house lusting after my mother, but the 'puffs too!" the scion of Malfoy yelled in clear disgust. Rubbing the bridge of his nose and calming down, he continued, "I don't know how, but you won this round Granger. Next time…"

"I'll win again," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, "but the verbal spars are fun."

"Yes, they are," agreed Malfoy, "I'm just wishing I had a chance to implement all the insults Tracey's taught me. Most don't fit you, sadly, as they were designed for use against men."

"Too bad I'm rather happy being female, right? Anyway, I wasn't kidding with the whole thing about your mom giving Harry and Neptune private lessons. I think she might be into Purple Heart, too."

"There is no 'might' here, Granger," Draco informed her, groaning, "trust me."

Hermione blinked, then threw her head, laughing out loud. Malfoy's mother tortured him far more than she could hope to. She really needed to thank the woman for making her life in Hogwarts hilarious just by existing. They had their first Everything You Need To Know To Survive In This World class in two days. It would be fun to see if the woman was worthy of respect.

Malfoy just charged past her, looking for someone else to annoy.

"I'm not Noire, I don't stand in front of a mirror to admire my deliciously perky backside!" came a voice, startling both of them, as Harry was currently being forced to carry Neptune to their common room.

When Hermione and Malfoy had left the common room after breakfast that morning, Ron Weasley and Neptune had gotten into an eating competition. If anyone had won, it had been the elves, the little creatures were always glad to have more work to do and cooking to fill up the black holes that passed for those two's stomachs was a lot of work indeed.

"It's not gonna remain like that if you eat this much every day, you know?" Harry countered, looking as if he were carrying a hundred thousand pound weight in his back instead of the forty-something kilograms' worth of Neptune he was carrying in reality.

"Actually, yeah, it will. It's at times like these being a CPU rocks. I don't ever get fat, no matter how much I eat!"

Hermione could FEEL the envy washing all over her body. Then again, by the same token Neptune wouldn't ever age past looking like a girl barely entering puberty. Draco seemed to not care. He had a spectacularly small appetite anyway, so it didn't make a difference to him.

"Oh hey Hermione. Oh hey Draco," called Harry, as he passed them by, "fancy meeting you here."

"I'm soooo stuffed!" Neptune informed them as she got off Harry for a few seconds, stretching herself, "anyway, are you two on a date?" she asked, blinking.

Malfoy and Granger looked at each other. Then they began to laugh. Hard. "Me? On a date with her?" he asked, pointing at Hermione.

"Seriously, a date with this guy?" she asked, looking as if she'd just been asked if the sky was bright green.

"Just because we get along, nominally at that, doesn't mean we actually like each other," Malfoy informed.

Hermione nodded. "He's a bully and a purist jackass. I would sooner date my own shoes."

"To be fair, you do have lovely shoes," Harry said, smiling at her.

"Thank you," Hermione said, smiling back.

"There. Aren't you gonna accuse them of dating? That seems more like it would be possible as a relationship than us," Draco said, gesturing at the two who were complimenting each other's clothes in a fashion reminiscent of friends.

"Nah," Neptune said, shaking her head, "I can't see it, really. Harry has a bit of a one track mind and there's only one woman in his heart."

"Oh, so widdle Potty has a crush, then?" Draco asked, sounding like a teenaged girl pretending to talk in baby talk. He did it because it annoyed his mother, and it seemed to annoy the crap out of everyone he used it against.

It seemed that those words made Neptune fall into deep thought for all of three seconds. "I dunno!" she informed, smiling brightly. It was true. She wasn't entirely certain what Harry's relationship with Plutia, and, more importantly, Iris Heart was. Neptune was vaguely aware how the people who truly worshipped the goddesses behaved.

Neptune going around as Purple Heart alone usually caused big damn messes in the street, and not because of how beautiful she was, precisely.

But she had never quite seen somebody like Harry was to Plutia. Harry considered them goddesses and had to actively discard the concepts of religion he'd held before. Plutia had made an immense impact on him when she'd first saved his life and then chastised the aunt that abused him.

Oh, well, it couldn't be all that important anyway.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and just walked away. One might ask why Draco Malfoy, snooty pureblood supremacist extraordinaire, had spoken no slurs against either Hermione or the family-less Neptune, and how he had even let Harry go without at least a little ribbing, just to make sure that Harry didn't forget that Malfoy was better than him.

It would have to do with the fact that Harry was friends with his mom and his mom didn't take kindly to Draco insulting her friends. Mostly because her friends were often very influential or very powerful, thus Draco pissing them off was a less than decent idea. Draco had been raised to be politically aware and in control of himself, because he was to succeed Lucius Malfoy one day, and he wouldn't be able to hold a candle to his father's ability as a manipulator unless he could keep his tongue in check.

Well, Lucius did a whole lot of things with his tongue that Draco was pretty certain he would never do, but nobody had to know that part. At least Lucius had been discrete enough to make sure nobody told anyone of his escapades.

"Whatever," muttered the heir to Malfoy as he headed back to his common room, ready to lay waste to his housemates for their demeaning words against his mother.

* * *

Later that day, Narcissa Malfoy sat behind her desk in the classroom she had given the upper years their etiquette classes. There were plenty of muggleborns, muggle raised and otherwise orphaned children who would require plenty of help to be able to adapt to Wizarding Society, and while she wasn't particularly fond of them, she was one of the few pureblood supremacists that found them necessary.

Her family, the Blacks, was an old one. Old enough to have encountered and countered the problems inherent with the inbreeding of the Wizarding world, they were. Because of that, Narcissa knew enough about genetics to understand that it was necessary to inject new blood every once in a while. While her aunt Walburga might be one of the most rabid and insane supporters of the Pureblood agenda, as it was called, her uncle Orion had not been anywhere near as dumb as she was.

Even if Narcissa had held doubts before, they had been gone when her niece was born. Little Nymphadora had been born with a rare gift that had once been associated with her family. She'd been born a Metamorphmagus. Narcissa had no doubts that the injection of fresh blood into an already powerful bloodline only served to strengthen that bloodline.

Of course, she was absolutely certain that careful breeding was still a necessity to make sure a bloodline stayed strong and was not too diluted.

All of these musings were because she had actually been reviewing, in her mind, the words that her son had spoken about classmates of note that he had. Specifically, she was thinking about the fact that almost all of the classmates worth noting in terms of performance in their first DADA class had been either half-bloods or muggleborn students. She was looking for a potential bride for Draco.

She'd have to wait and see. Give them a few years while also scouting the upper and lower years during that time. It never hurt to get the relationship started early so they could at least be friends. Narcissa was certain that, had she not been forced to become friendly with Lucius as he was with her, she would probably sing a different tune about their marriage.

"Professor Malfoy?" a tired sounding voice startled her from her musings as she turned around to greet Potter, who was followed in by that light purple haired girl that always seemed to be around him, the latter smiling in a goofy way. This was not the first time they'd met like this.

Potter was to be a lord, and the Potter family was both a rich and old one, so Narcissa thought it especially necessary to attend to him in particular. She had advised her son to be friendly to him, and she had cut down Lucius' attempts at instructing Draco in how to do so. The Malfoy family held very little links tying them together to the Potter family, and they would no doubt be very powerful allies.

Hell, Harry alone was a very good ally, given the fame he'd accrued on account of his defeat of the Dark Lord.

"Call me Narcissa, Mr. Potter," the beautiful blonde said, shaking her head slightly.

"Okay," Potter said, yawning. The only downside to Potter was that he didn't know the first thing about courtesy or etiquette. Not even muggle etiquette.

But it was just more incentive for Narcissa to try and transform him from the slob he was into a proper young lord.

Really, the main reason Narcissa was interested in Potter was because of the value he had as a political ally and nothing else. She wished the best for her family, more importantly, she wished the best for Draco and this was the way to go about obtaining it.

Within the few days since the start of term, Harry Potter had not called very much attention to himself. He spent most of his time in the Hufflepuff common room, Narcissa knew this because she'd been there to talk to him about setting up these classes in how to lord your wealth over people in a way they think you're being polite.

Sprout was very accommodating, as Narcissa was very… persuasive. One could even say she had a silver tongue. Really, Pomona had never stood a chance.

"When one says that, Mr. Potter, you're supposed to extend the same courtesy," said Narcissa, sounding disappointed. She was pulling on her best motherly instincts to reach out to him and get him to listen, since she'd noticed that seemed to work well enough with younger people. Either that or she just liked mothering kids. "I know you weren't raised in the best of environments, but that's exactly what I'm here to help you with."

"I still don't understand why we're doing this. I mean, I get that I'm supposed to be some kind of lord of something, I've been to my vault and I've never seen so much gold before, but still… Can't I just get someone else to act in my official capacity as a lord so I can bum around?"

Neptune, looking to be lazing about in one of the desks behind him, suddenly stood up. "Oh, hell no! If I have to act all stuffy and proper when I'm on official business, then you have to do it yourself too!"

Harry slumped.

"Cheer up, Harry. Even Plutia does this sort of thing!" Neptune confirmed, smiling at him. "Well, usually it just ends in Sadie coming out, but you know what I mean," she finished, gesturing in a manner that might have been a strangled shrug. It was odd.

Narcissa rubbed the bridge of her nose. The purple haired girl was a very good aid when it came to dealing with Potter, because despite what might appear most of the time, he did actually listen to her. That was the only reason Narcissa let her come along (while Neptune had begged into the classes, in an effort to get away from chores given in the common room).

The fact that the girl could spontaneously transform into a fully grown form that had Narcissa moisturizing the fabric of her underwear the very moment she laid eyes on it had absolutely nothing to do with that, and no, she was not being a tsundere about it and what the hell is a tsundere anyway?

"Well, you see, it's a kind of person who goes from all mean and angry and stuff to-"

"Did I say that out loud?" Narcissa asked, paling in such a way that was barely noticeable against her already pale skin.

"Yep!" Neptune said, nodding to her. "I know I'm drop dead gorgeous and all, but poor Harry here is too young to hear the kinds of things you want to do to me."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Iris Heart," he said simply.

"Sadie knows that even she can't defeat the Moral Guardians and their Censor Dogs," Neptune said, speaking in such a way that made Harry think she should have a bushy white moustache along with a long beard to stroke at that moment, "so she usually minds her audience."

"I don't even want to know…" Narcissa informed them, even though she had the sneaking suspicion Neptune knew full well she was lying out of her ass and she was in fact, very curious about whom this 'Iris Heart' or 'Sadie' person was.

* * *

I promise there will be no Draco/Hermione here. Why? Because they're 11, and that would be creepy.

On the flipside, I make no promises about Narcissa and Purple Heart.

And yes, Neptune IS implying that Iris Heart does worse things than we see her do in her free time.

Next Chapter: Potions, Snape And Neptune: Fatal Mix!

Also, DDR.


End file.
